I am reading this book again, after a long time. I still cannot understand why the parents were so worried about Steve playing with imaginary friends. Or why they were concerned about him not playing with the other kids. Perhaps because when I was a kid I didn't have a whole lot of friends, i was introverted and liked to stay by myself making up stories and songs all the time.
Posted by Megachirops (Member # 4325) on :
I don't know if this answer will satisfy, but in my experience, when you are a parent, you worry about everything. You worry that you're too strict. You worry that you're too lax. You worry that your kids don't have enough friends. You worry that they are too social and not serious enough.
At least, I find that I virtually always seem to worry about how my daughters are coming along.
[ January 01, 2005, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: Megachirops ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
My mom thinks all of you guys are my imaginary friends. And she's very worried about me. Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote:My mom thinks all of you guys are my imaginary friends. And she's very worried about me.
We are. She should be.
Mega...you are WAAAAYYYY too strict. Keep it up!
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
When I was a kid I thought it would be really cool to have an imaginary friend, But I could never mnanage to make any. I'd sit down and make up characters, and I'd battle imaginary super-villains and such, but never managed the imaginary friend.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
I didn't have imaginary friends, but I had imaginary red shirts that I would command into battle, and not care that they died.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
Is God an imaginary friend?
My daughter has a personal fairy that seems very real to me. It gives her wise advice and insight, as well as telling her all about the fairy world. I delight in seeing the world through my daughter's eyes as she translates for her fairy. Of course, the fairy won't show herself to me. Although we did have a very serious talk when she first arrived in my daughter's life (for not all fairies are good).
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I had a big brother named John. I had Flipper, my favorite stuffed animal, and a host of other stuffed friends who really talked to me. My mother also visited at night, not really angel-like, but sort of as a consoling presence.
Posted by Megachirops (Member # 4325) on :
quote: Mega...you are WAAAAYYYY too strict.
*sniff*
O_O
*sniff*
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
You have to be strict to force your children to like mean old baseball teams.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
My little sister had an imaginary friend named Johnna. Once, years later, I met a girl with that name and couldn't ever take her seriously.
My two littlest sisters are close enough in age that they never had imaginary friends, but my little brother, feeling picked on and being the littlest and the only boy at home, has two imaginary friends: Big Michael and Little Michael.
The funny thing about Big Michael and Little Michael (that was true for Johnna as well, strangely enough) is that every day at least one of them is having a birthday. And when they're not having birthdays, one of them is dead. They die and come back to life quite often, actually.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Syn-- they weren't worried JUST about the imaginary friends. Steve's personality went through a major change after Step and his family moved to NC. The 'imaginary friends' were just a part of the big changes they saw in him.
But yeah-- when a kid starts spending time with imaginary friends, to the exclusion of real, physically touchable people, it's time to start worrying.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Annie, it makes sense: die, come back to life, birthday.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Rinse, repeat?
Posted by dread pirate romany (Member # 6869) on :
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't know if this answer will satisfy, but in my experience, when you are a parent, you worry about everything. You worry that you're too strict. You worry that you're too lax. You worry that your kids don't have enough friends. You worry that they are too social and not serious enough.
I worry about parents who don't worry about their kids. If you sleep well at night, you are obviously not worried about enough.
Edit: However, my daughter's imaginary freinds are the lEAST of my worries. with natural disasters, feral Rottweilers (OK, we really did have one in our neighborhood for a while), planes that crash into houses, cars that drive right up onto the sidewalk, etc......
[ January 02, 2005, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: dread pirate romany ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Why though? Not everyone is very social. I certainly wasn't. I didn't have alot of friends in school myself. I sort of liked it that way. Many of the kids kept teasing me a lot.
Posted by dread pirate romany (Member # 6869) on :
Me too Syn. Books were my friends.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Books and characters I made up from my own stories. Like a 700 year old cat person. I loved making up stories. I still do.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I repeat-- there is something wrong with you if you consistently neglect human interaction in favor of imaginary interaction.
Posted by Cor (Member # 4295) on :
Most of my imaginary friends as a child were dogs...my family thought I was allergic to dogs, so I was not allowed to have one. But I LOVED dogs so I was taken to see every dog movie out there..."Lassie Come Home," "For the Love of Benji" (my favorite), etc. It was almost torturous because seeing those movies made me want a puppy all the more.
As it turned out, I was NOT allergic to dogs. Out of the hundred or so items I was allergy-tested for, dogs were kind of lost in the list...the one "no" in a sea of "yesses" that got ignored. We discovered this after I secretly spent quite a bit of time at friends' houses playing with THEIR dogs, and had no reactions. I then requested an allergy re-test, the old list was brought out, I was re-tested, and everything said negative.
Needless to say, my imaginary doggies became a real one within two months. I have had dogs in the house pretty much ever since.
[ January 03, 2005, 09:32 PM: Message edited by: Cor ]
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
Scott, that depends on the nature of the human interaction. Before I was eight or nine, I didn't have many friends that I would see on a regular basis.
I never had any real imaginary friends, though. I tried to, because that was the kid thing to do, but I never really 'bought it'. I spent a lot of my childhood happily doing things by myself. I built things out of Legos, blocks, and whatever else I had at hand. Maybe that's why I enjoy spending time alone now that I'm becoming an adult.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Having done both, I'm with Scott. No human interaction is not good for you. But neither is unhealthy human interaction. Plenty of that one here, too. No interaction seems preferable, but I promise you, it gets lonely.
Healthy interaction is a great thing. Even if it's only with one other person. I think every human being needs to know at least one other person knows them and accepts them as they are.
After all, if you didn't want ANY human interaction, you wouldn't have conversations with folks on Hatrack. Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
I had imaginary animals. Like a unicorn named Chloe, and a panther. Black. It lasted for one or two years.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
I had an imaginary brother that was about a year and a half younger than me (born the day my grandpa died, so like june of 87), he was always getting into trouble, and my way to blame stuff away. He stayed around until like sixth grade which is probably way too late.
Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
quote: My mother also visited at night, not really angel-like, but sort of as a consoling presence.
After her death, Elizabeth? That is quite beautiful.
Posted by Lisha-princess (Member # 6966) on :
I didn't have imaginary friends as a child, but my dad told me something interesting.
Remember the commercial about the little girl who wakes up and goes downstairs and talks to the fridge and the flowers and pretty much everything, and then she goes into the living room and turns on the tv. It ends with me having a terrified expression on her face and hearing violent noises from the tv...it was an ad for monitoring what you children watch on tv or something like that.
Anyway, the point is that my dad says I was that little girl when I was small: I talked to everything and everything talked back to me. :-)
On another note, after rereading Lost Boys after I moved into the house I rented last year, I had a hard time going down to the basement. The stairs really bothered me: they were wooden and beneath them was a huge pile of dirt. I was half-convinced there were the bodies of dead little boys in that dirt.
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
My mom claims that I had imaginary friends when I was very young - which probably makes sense, as we lived out in the country, I am an only child, and there was no one to play with. However, I have no memory at all of having such friends. I did acquire an ability to find things to do to entertain myself without feeling lonely.
Then, when we moved into a tract home, ours was the yard where all the kids in the neighborhood congregated, largely because my mom would tolerate it while none of the other mothers would. I was not, however, nearly as thrilled with all the company, and I would often go inside to read a book while all the other kids played on our lawn.
In school, I had a few friends, and they seemed to be all I needed. When I was in junior high, I was actually required to join an after-school club because they were so "worried" about me not having more friends. I really resented that, as I was quite happy as I was. I've gotten more social as I've gotten older, but I still have what is probably a higher than usual need for private time.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
It most of my school career well meaning teachers kept forcing me to go to proms. I didn't want to go in the 6th grade, I didn't want to go to the Jr high prom or my high school prom. I wanted to stay home and listen to Mozart and read. I just don't see much wrong with being extremely intraverted or why normal has to be being extraverted with a lot of friends. I'd rather have some close, very tight friends than 200 not-so close friends. Though, I am not exactly sure if there is anything wrong with me or how I could tell... I would like to meet more people, or collect more close friends, but it's not very easy.
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
What worried me about our new house was the crawl space under the kitchen.
Especially after the swarm of ladybugs came up into our kitchen. This is obviously the effect of a happy cheerful presence lurking under the house.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:I would like to meet more people, or collect more close friends, but it's not very easy.
Especially if you close yourself away from human interaction.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I don't close myself off from it... I do try.. My funds are limited though, that's one problem. And the so-called real world just isn't like college. In college meeting people was a piece of cake. There was SSE, movies every week, all sorts of talks I could go to. I made 2 friends just by having a strange little job for a few weeks. There were reoccuring people everywhere. I had packs of friends in my FYP, different groups like my Christian friends, pagan friends from the Artist's guild. All kinds of people. And, If I wanted to just be alone I could hide out in Richardson computer lab and play on the computers on the Friday and Saturday after working at the library... What a sweet job. Now, I get stuck paying 10 dollars hoping to meet new people, but instead I get completely ignored and watch everyone split up into their own little groups. Perhaps my natural shyness has gotten a bit worse, but meeting people outside of school is a total chore. Or, perhaps it's my fault for simply hating small talk with a passion and pushing my way into other people's conversations... People have a way of building a wall just by talking together.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Mega...you and Cor are wonderful parents. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Whatever you're doing...keep it up!
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote: I then requested an allergy re-test, the old list was brought out, I
I would like to just state for the record that I will never be requesting an allergy re-test.
That is all.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I was kidding, Bob.
Look -----> Posted by Cor (Member # 4295) on :
ElJay, there's a big difference between asking for a "single" needle allergy test, and a battery of them... Believe me, I would never request having the whole work up done. I have vague memories of those hours of torture. I think I've blocked most of it out.
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